Join us on Thursday, March 27th, to hear bestselling author Andrew Lawler discuss his latest book, A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution!
From Andrew Lawler, the nationally bestselling author of The Secret Token, comes A PERFECT FRENZY: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution , the largely untold story of rebellion in Virginia that uncovers the truth behind mythologized origins of the American Revolution, and complicates the role of British Lord Dunmore, who is commonly portrayed as the villain who burned Norfolk to the ground in the history books. A PERFECT FRENZY will forever change one’s understanding of the American Revolution, and prefigures America’s present-day conflicts around race, gun control, and the divide between urban and rural communities.
The Perfect Frenzy
As the American Revolution broke out in New England in the spring of 1775 dramatic events unfolded in Virginia that proved every bit as decisive as the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill in uniting the colonies against Britain. Virginia, the largest, wealthiest, and most populous province in British North America was led by Lord Dunmore. But the Scottish earl lacked troops, so when patriots imperiled the capital of Williamsburg, he threatened to free and arm enslaved Africans—two of every five Virginians—to fight for the Crown as the Ethiopian Regiment, the first corps of Black soldiers in American history. Virginia’s tobacco elite was reluctant to go to war with Britain but was outraged at this threat to their human property. Dunmore fled the capital to build a stronghold in the colony’s largest city, the port of Norfolk. As enslaved people flocked to his camp, skirmishes broke out. “Lord Dunmore has commenced hostilities in Virginia,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. “It has raised our countrymen into a perfect frenzy.” With a patriot army marching on Norfolk, the royal governor freed those enslaved and sent them into battle against their former owners. In retribution, and with Jefferson’s encouragement, furious rebels burned Norfolk to the ground on January 1, 1776, blaming the crime on Dunmore. A later patriot investigation, kept secret for sixty subsequent years, concluded that the patriots were indeed responsible, and yet the myth persists to this day. The port’s destruction and Dunmore’s emancipation prompted Virginia’s patriot leaders to urge the Continental Congress to split from Britain, breaking the deadlock among the colonies and leading to adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Days later, Dunmore and his Black allies withdrew from Virginia, but the legacy of their fight would lead, ultimately, to Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Chronicling these stunning and widely overlooked events in full for the first time, A PERFECT FRENZY offers a striking new perspective on the American Revolution that reorients our understanding of its causes, highlights the radically different motivations between patriots in the North and South, and reveals the seeds of today’s racial divide.
Andrew Lawler
Historian Andrew Lawler is the author of national bestseller The Secret Token, about the lost colony of Roanoke, and Under Jerusalem. As a journalist he has written more than a thousand newspaper and magazine articles for, among many others, the New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, and Smithsonian. He is a contributing writer for Science and contributing editor for Archaeology magazines. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
“A fascinating account of one of our country’s great historical mysteries. Fast-paced and wonderfully written, with plenty of surprising turns along the way, The Secret Token is a delight.”